With Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie already under his belt this year, Cadel Evans can target his one and only goal with peace of mind: the Tour de France 2011. On the road leading to July, the Australian will be riding the Criterium du Dauphine, a final test that will also give him the opportunity to finally win a race he has finished in second place in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

With Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie already under his belt this year, Cadel Evans can target his one and only goal with peace of mind: the Tour de France 2011. On the road leading to July, the Australian will be riding the Criterium du Dauphine, a final test that will also give him the opportunity to finally win a race he has finished in second place in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

In 2010, the Team BMC Racing leader had set his sights on a Giro d'Italia and Tour de France double, but it proved to be too much to handle. This year, Evans opted for a lighter race schedule. The 2010 season is one of his best seasons so far, and even though he refuses being a favorite for the overall victory in the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine, he will be the man to beat in a race with a route that is tailor-made for him.

"Since the Tour de Romandie, I trained and rested with the Tour de France 2011 in mind because it is my big objective," Cadel Evans told Roadcycling.com and our mobile sister site Roadcycling.mobi.

"I've been doing a lot of testing with new equipment, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it works and what improvements I need to make with my training and the new equipment," Evans added.

"I went to a training camp in altitude and checked out a few important 2011 Tour de France stages. I will check out some others after the Criterium du Dauphine. It will be an interesting race to assess my form and that of other riders who were not on the Giro. I'm not going there with great expectations. It is a test, not an objective."

However, Evans is not a newcomer to the Criterium du Dauphine (Dauphine Libere) race and he also checked out a few important stages of this years' edition: Sunday's prologue in St-Jean de Maurienne (Evans won the Nancy prologue in 2009), Wednesday's time trial in Grenoble and the two mountain stages of the final weekend.

"Obviously, depending on how the race goes, I could get carried away as it has happened to me in the past already. I like this race and its mountains. But I did not check out all the stages in detail. All I know is that there are several mountain top finishes, which I will probably like."

Evans has his eyes dedicatedly focused on the 40 kilometer individual time trial of the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine for one specific reason.

"The most important test for me will be the Grenoble individual time trial because it's the same that on the Tour de France 2011. This much I know. As for the rest, I can improvise, without any pressure on my shoulders."

That's exactly what the former world champion did in this year's Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour de Romandie. He let others control the race and did not even ask too much of his team mates before dealing a fatal blow to his rivals.